Friday, August 10, 2012

The FBI Miami Shootout

In the 1980’s, there were a good deal of
notorious violent crimes in Miami. Most of them, not coincidentally,
were somehow linked to the cocaine trade that based itself here during
that time. But of all the murders, robberies, massacres and assaults
that took place during Dade County’s most violent period, the most
influential and notorious of them all did not involve high-profile drug
cartels. It didn’t even involve small time pushers arguing over a
street corner. It involved two middle-aged white men from Pinecrest and
8 FBI agents. What began as another sunny spring morning in Miami
ended as, what was at the time, the bloodiest day in the history of the
FBI.

WE TRAINED ‘EM, NOW WE GOTTA STOP ‘EM

Michael Platt and William Matix met
while stationed at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky in the early 1970’s. Both
were considered exemplary soldiers, Platt serving as an airborne ranger
and Matix as a military policeman. After being honorably discharged,
both men returned to civilian life in different parts of the country,
but remained in close contact. Strangely, both men also had wives who
died violent deaths in the early 1980’s, Matix’s wife being murdered
during a laboratory robbery in Ohio in December 1983, and Platt’s
committing suicide a year later. While the incidents are unrelated and
seemingly coincidental, it may offer an insight into what caused these
two to go on a violent robbery spree from October 1985 until the
fateful afternoon in April of the following year.

The FBI’s Miami field office had closed
in on the suspects thanks to their own investigations and the testimony
of a man who had followed the pair after a previous robbery.
Supervisory Special Agent Gordon McNeill sent his team of 14 agents out
to patrol a stretch of South Dixie Highway in what is now known as
Pinecrest. For those unfamiliar with Miami-Dade County and its various
municipalities, Pinecrest is an affluent suburban area that is mostly
home to families and a few essential businesses. It is not, nor was it
at the time, an area people associated with violent crime like, say,
Little Havana or Opa Locka. So it made the fact that two if its
residents, seemingly mild-mannered guys who kept to themselves, were
notorious robbers even more alarming.

At about 9 AM on April 11, 1986, Special
Agents Ben Grogan and Jerry Dove noticed Platt and Matix in a black
Chevrolet Monte Carlo on South Dixie Highway. They moved in behind them
and alerted the rest of the team that they were following the
suspects. Sensing that they were being followed, the robbers turned off
US-1 and onto SW 122nd Street and then again onto SW 82nd Ave, behind
the Dixie Belle shopping center. As the rest of the agents closed in on
the suspects, McNeill passed the Monte Carlo and saw Platt loading his
Ruger Mini-14. It was at this point the FBI knew it was in for a
fight.

NINE MINUTES OF HELL

Special Agent Richard Manauzzi, who was
riding alone in his vehicle, forced Platt and Matix into a large tree
in a parking lot off SW 82nd Ave. Immediately after crashing, Platt
fired 13 rounds at the agents from his Mini-14, hitting McNeill in his
shooting hand and Special Agent Edmundo Mireles in the forearm. After
firing a 12-gauge shotgun into the grill of the nearby vehicle operated
by Grogan and Dove, Matix then began to lean out of the Monte Carlo,
presumably to try and overtake one of the FBI vehicles for a quick
escape. He was immediately shot in the forearm by Grogan, widely known
as the best shot in the Miami field office. While back inside the car
Matix was hit again, this time in the head and collarbone, by McNeill.
The head shot, while accurate and often deadly, only managed to knock
the robber unconscious.

Platt continued to shoot at the Agents
as he got out of the Monte Carlo and began to advance on Grogan and
Dove’s vehicle. During this charge he was shot four times leaving the
vehicle, mostly in the legs and torso, and then another five times as
he attempted to commandeer the FBI automobile. Platt was undeterred by
the flurry of bullets hitting him as he made his assault, and upon
arrival at Dove and Grogan’s car shot them both, killing each
instantly. He also shot several other agents in the process, providing
cover as Matix somehow regained consciousness after being shot in the
head and crawled over to the FBI vehicle, undetected. The two suspects
crawled into the front of Grogan and Dove’s car and continued to
receive gunshot wounds, and return fire, for another two minutes.

Agent Mireles, despite having been shot
in the forearm of his shooting hand, shot Platt in the feet as he began
to exit the FBI car again, presumably to fire more shots. While the
wounds were not fatal, they did force Platt back into vehicle. Mireles
then dropped his Remington 870 shotgun and advanced on what was Grogan
and Doves car with a .357 magnum revolver, firing into the vehicle five
times. Despite having both been shot in the head, chest and
extremities, the wounds that finally stopped Platt and Matix were
rounds that lodged in their spines during this final attack. Their
bodies slumped, relaxed, and Mirales turned off the ignition
effectively ending the bloodiest shootout in FBI history a mere nine
minutes after the suspects had been spotted on US-1. But to those
involved, it must have seemed an eternity.

Paramedics arrived on the scene and saw
no signs of life in either Dove or Grogan. They turned their attention
to the two unconscious suspects, Matix who was already dead and Platt
who they attempted to resuscitate with no success. Five other officers
were injured, McNeill and Mireles among the more serious, but there
were no other fatalities. During the four minute gunfight FBI agents
got off somewhere between 75-80 shots and Platt unleashed in the
neighborhood of 25-30. Matix got off only the one shotgun round and
some experts have surmised that had he been as aggressive as his
partner the two may have gotten away.

LIKE A REAL-LIFE TONY MONTANA

Its carnage aside, the FBI Miami
Firefight became a keystone event in the history of the bureau. How
could trained marksmen such as the agents hit their targets so
accurately and yet fail to stop them? It was originally assumed that
the agents had shot poorly and therefore allowed Platt and Matix to
advance on them so effectively. But autopsy reports showed that the
suspects were hit 18 times by FBI bullets, incurring multiple injuries
to “kill zones” like the head and chest. In his book on the incident,
Dr. W. French Anderson attests much of Platt and Matix’s success, as it
were, to the innate ability of the human body to function in survival
situations. Much like the officers who ultimately did them in, the
suspects withstood presumably fatal gunshot wounds and continued to
fight, sensing it was their only chance to survive.

This aside, the FBI took a different
approach and took a long look at the weapons with which they were
arming their agents as well as the ammunition used. Reports following
the incident showed that agents had fired perfect shots (confirmed by
autopsies) and the guns had functioned properly. Had the bullets done
their jobs Platt would have lasted about 30 seconds after his first
chest wound, presumably saving the lives of the two slain Agents. Law
enforcement organizations around the world looked at the Miami
Firefight and did similar assessments of their munitions. It became the
impetus for a new focus on handguns and the bullets used by law
enforcement. Stopping power and the power of penetration became the two
most important factors in a weapon, which makes sense since stopping
is really what the guns are used for.

A LASTING LEGACY NOBODY REMEMBERS

Because of its devastation and its
impact, the Miami shootout is arguably the most analyzed and studied
firefight in FBI history. It was chronicled several times on
television, most notably in the 1988 made for TV movie “In the Line of
Fire.” The event is also mentioned in the 1996 novel Unintended
Consequences, though the events in that account are highly
fictionalized. Along with unfortunate lessons learned, the attack also
served to demonstrate the resilience of the human body and the
unreliability of simple weaponry for stopping a criminal.

It is odd, then that the lone reminder
most Miamians have of the incident is a stretch of SW 82nd Ave between
120th and 124th streets named Agent Jerry Dove Avenue and Agent
Benjamin Grogan Avenue. In a city full of so many new arrivals and
transplants, one would think more people would know about such an
influential event in the history of law enforcement. But many who grew
up in the area still have no idea of the significance of Suniland in
the annals of the FBI. But then again, who would have thought Pinecrest
would be the home of the most notorious shootout Miami has ever seen?
Certainly not the neighbors of them men involved, and certainly not
anyone who is living there now.